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Talk about smug. On MSNBC last night, Lawrence O’Donnell mocked Newt Gingrich by rewriting an interview the former House speaker recently gave to the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN):

In their coverage, the Huffington Post and Mediaite both call O‘Donnell’s rewrite of Gingrich’s interview a “parody”–which would be an accurate description if O‘Donnell’s little sendup was actually funny.

By the way, here is what Gingrich actually said in the CBN interview:

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There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgivenessAnd here is O‘Donnell’s treatment of that statement:

GINGRICH: “There’s question at times of my life–” O’DONNELL: “–specifically when I was leading the attack on Bill Clinton for having extramarital sex–” GINGRICH: “– partially driven by how passionately I felt about–” O’DONNELL: “extramarital sex–” GINGRICH: “that I worked far too hard–” O’DONNELL: “–to make sure that extramarital sexual–”

GINGRICH: “–things happened in my life that were not appropriate.” O’DONNELL: “Just like Bill Clinton.”You can watch the relevant clip from Gingrich’s CBN interview below. As we reported on Wednesday, the mainstream media has already had a bit of a field day distorting aspects of this interview. But if you watch it yourself, I think you’ll see that Gingrich comes across as humble and thoughtful–and there are even moments of sincerity tucked in there: